On the heels of the announcement that Mattel is going to start making Barbie dolls (not Barbie’s always less popular friends or sisters, but actual “Barbie”) with a variety of skin tones, heights, and body sizes (not to mention articulated feet so she can wear flats once in a while), we knew it couldn’t be long before until someone took up the mantle of opposition.

There’s a simplicity to this idea— that Barbie is nothing more than a piece of plastic, whose unattainable figure, along with the normalization of the thin, white, blonde ideal, has never affected a young child’s sense of self or the world— that I find so close to comforting. It would be kind of beautiful, if only it weren’t completely idiotic. But sure, let’s keep going with the narrow minded, privileged naivete of longing for the good ol’ days.

I'm glad I was raised in the 50's when a doll was an object, not a role model, & boys could call me a cootie without going to the principal

For someone who has spent her entire career responding to her industry and the larger world’s view of her weight, it seems odd that Alley is so adamantly opposed to ever seeing a connection between our obsession with weight and the images we surround our children with.